


Iron John

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Community: watsons_woes, Death, Gen, Prompt Fic, Talking Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 15:05:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2029584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Red turns black, black turns red – Iron John, what has the black mare said?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iron John

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2014 July Watson’s Woes Prompt #26, brought to you by شهرزاد (Scheherazade), 蒲松龄 (Pu Songling), Perrault, Grimm, and Co.: **Blood on the Snow.** Many fairy tales have their roots in horror stories. Others are bright and shiny and sparkly by design. Use a fairy tale or horror story as the inspiration for today's entry.

Once there was a king whose heart was so pure and whose eyes were so sharp that he could look at a man and not only see his outer self but also his inner soul, right down to his very thoughts. He would often go in disguise among his people to find the truth of a matter or learn what lay in someone’s heart; in this way he would uncover plots against his kingdom and his person and bring the wicked thinker of such thoughts to justice.

Wherever the king travelled, he did so in the company of his best knight as his bodyguard. Sir John was a quiet man whose loyalty to his king was so unshakeable that everyone called him Faithful John, including the other knights. Faithful John spoke few words, but any who threatened the king’s life met his death at John’s sword in the space of a heartbeat.

The fame of the king’s gift spread far and wide, and monarchs from neighboring kingdoms would request the king’s aid in seeking the truth. So it was that the two men travelled far and wide together and return home, the king pleased that he had brought justice and Faithful John full of pride for his king.

But one day as they rode home on the main highway, Death appeared to both of them, fearsome in his black hood. “Come with me, O King, to my land,” Death said, “and look into my heart. If you can learn what Death is thinking, then I shall never visit you again, and you shall live forever. But if you fail, you must die, and stay in my palace forever.”

The king was pale with fear, but his face was resolute. He pulled off his ring and turned to his beloved knight. “My faithful John,” said the king, “I forbid you to accompany me on this journey.”

In vain did John weep and implore his king to let him share the peril of this errand. Instead, the king gave the ring to Faithful John and told him to wear it on his heart-finger. “If the jewel stays red, you will know I am alive and well. But if it turns black, you will know I am now guest in Death’s kingdom until Judgment Day, and you shall be king of our land in my place.” With that, the king rode away with Death; Faithful John, after many tears, turned his horse’s head back along the road that led toward home.

Days passed and the stone in the ring stayed red. But at the end of one week, John watched the ring turn from red to black – and knew that the king was in Death’s domain forever. Then poor Faithful John wept and tore his hair in his grief; while the kingdom mourned he refused food, would not sleep, and began to wither away.

The pain inside Sir John was so great that he feared that it would kill him. So he went to the royal smiths, and had the best of them forge three iron bands; John then went to the royal physician, and had her fasten the bands around his heart. The iron bands kept John’s heart from breaking, but they also made him cold and unmoved by anything tender or loving. He sat in state on the throne, heard judgments, made treaties, signed papers, rode to battle – but as coolly and expressionlessly as a wooden doll; his subjects stopped calling him Faithful John, and instead named their solemn new king Iron John.

Iron John ruled his kingdom with cool fairness and stoic wisdom. He did not have his beloved king’s gift of discernment, but his knowledge of the ways of warfare and diplomacy gave him a keen eye for wicked men; he brought them to justice with his sword, saving the kingdom and his life every time. He never removed the ring from his left hand, the one with the black stone. In this way three years passed.

But one morning the royal stable-lad begged an audience with Iron John. “Your Majesty,” the boy said, “I was grooming the horses, and when I reached the black mare that was the favourite of our old king, she said to me, ‘What do you see, my lord?’ I feared witchcraft and beg you to come see this sight.”

A thread of cold fear trickled around John’s iron-clad heart, for that phrase had always been what he said to the king when he would peer into the hearts of men. He went to the stables with the boy. When Iron John walked into the stable, the black mare lifted her head and said to him, “What do you see, my lord?”

John was not the old king, but he answered the mare truthfully. “I see a ring with a black stone,” he said. “I see a heart kept whole only with three iron bands round its girth. I see a kingdom of sorrow. What do you see, faithful mare of the king?”

“I see a fortress of black stone,” said the mare. “I see a captive held in that fortress. I see a ring with a red stone.” With those words, the faithful black mare fell dead. Iron John stared in astonishment at this sight.

All night long Iron John paced the floor, thinking of the mare’s words. He realised that the mare’s vision of the red stone meant one thing – that there was a way to turn that stone upon his finger the colour of life once again. For the first time in years he felt his heart strain upon its three iron bands, as if it strove to beat as it once did.

So, appointing a council of the wisest men and women in the kingdom to keep watch over the land, Iron John rode out to find the fortress of black stone.

Having a heart held by iron makes one cold, and makes one’s thinking cold. John thought of the black pall on a coffin, and the black hood worn by Death, and the black mare who had died delivering a message. Black for death. His king was in the land of the dead – the city of the dead.

Iron John rode straight into the kingdom’s necropolis, and after much searching found a crypt carved in black granite in the shape of a castle’s rampart – a fortress of black stone. With his sword John struck the lock off the gate and entered the crypt, heart straining for fear. Inside was no sarcophagus, but a staircase of black granite. John lit a rushlight and descended.

For a full day John walked down the stairs. At the very bottom was a set of gates, formed of black terror and that cried like wolves when he laid his hands upon them; his heart shivered and beat hard against his iron bands.

In his mind’s eye the black mare spoke his own words to his king. _What do you see, my lord?_

Iron John glared at the gate. _I see the fear of Death that every mortal man carries in his heart._ He laid his sword on the ground and walked through the gates unarmed despite his knocking knees and his heat pounding.

The next gates were made of red fury and screamed like an invading army; they were red-hot to the touch, and he snatched his hand back, angry.

_What do you see, my lord?_

Iron John drew a deep breath. _I see the sins of wrath and bloodlust that have sent my king’s enemies to Hell._  He stripped off his armour and walked, linen-clad and barefoot as a peasant, through the gates of War which parted at his touch, heart thumping like a drum.

The third gate was white as fog and sobbed like a bereft mother. John heard all three of his iron bands creak as his heart fought to break in two. The terror of the first gate and the rage of the second combined with this new feeling, urging him to turn and flee from this terrible long-time acquaintance.

_What do you see, my lord?_

For the first time in three years, tears filled John’s eyes and ran like ice down his cheeks. _What do I see? I see Grief, the due of all who lose the ones they love to Death._ He stripped off his linens and undid his draws; he walked, birth-naked and unprotected as a babe, through the gates of Grief and into the realm of Death. His heart leaped with pain.

Just inside the gates of Grief the hooded figure who had taken his king stood before him. “Brave and faithful John,” said Death. “I knew when I took one, I would have two in the end. Enter my kingdom forever.”

Iron John looked into the face of Death. “My lord, I beg one favour of you. You bade my king look into your heart, and if he failed to learn your innermost thoughts you would keep him – but if he spoke truth, you would let him live forever. I beg to be allowed to read your innermost thoughts and tell you what they are.”

Death laughed and clapped his hands like a child. “You are brave and loyal, Faithful John, but you do not have the pure heart and sharp eye of your king. He failed. So will you. If you can indeed tell me the innermost heart of Death, I will free both of you to live forever!”

Iron John laughed for the first time in three years. Again his heart leaped, creaking the bands. “I speak your heart now. The innermost heart of Death is that there is no heart. Death feels nothing, cares for nothing, hates nothing, fears nothing, grieves for nothing, loves nothing. Even a man whose heart is bound in iron holds more inside than Death.”

The black-hooded figure screeched, shivered, shrunk, and vanished.

SNAP.

John staggered at the pain inside his chest. But his heart beat harder, and hope filled him like a draught of wine.

Behind where Death had stood was a catafalque. His king lay on it enrobed as if for his death-Mass, hands folded on his breast. John stepped forward, shaking. “My lord, it is I.”

The king’s eyes opened. He stirred and sat up, breathing. He looked at Iron John.

SNAP.

John shook with pain and joy, weeping for both. “My lord,” he whispered. “What do you see?”

The king’s eyes peered shrewdly at John for a long time. “You are,” he said, in the hoarse voice of a man awakening after a long sleep, “my faithful John. You have mourned my death for three years, even as you have ruled wisely and well. Your grief was so great that you wrapped your heart in three iron bands, two of which are now broken. My black mare carried my dream to you and died of it. You descended into this kingdom and defeated Death’s riddle when I could not. We are free, and now we shall never die again.”

The stone on John’s ring turned red.

SNAP.

John – Faithful John, Iron John no longer – fell on his king’s neck, and both men wept for joy at their reunion.

They walked out of the gates of Grief, and John laughed as he donned his linens again. Past the gates of War the king helped John on with his armour as if he were his squire. Faithful John resheathed his sword outside the gates of Fear, and together the two men ascended the staircase, where John’s horse waited.

What a celebration took place in that kingdom when the king rode back, Faithful John sitting behind him! The feasting and merrymaking went on so long that the last drunk only went home yesterday. The king resumed his throne; John removed the ring from his hand and set it once more on the hand of the man he loved, and once more rode beside him as his knight, his sword ready.

The promise Death had foolishly made still holds good.

For the king, that sharp-eyed seer of every wickedness, and his faithful John, are still with us, and will be with us forever.


End file.
